New 2011 MacBook Pro Heating Issue?

And, after you aggressively contacted Apple technical support and described your MBP symptoms, I'm realllly interested in hearing what they said........??? The phrase "random crash" is not typically a part of the Apple lexicon, so I would imagine they would be extremely interested in that sort of feedback.

However, eww, while 80C - 90C may be an acceptable operating temp range for the CPU, per SandyBridge specs, that thermal level may be a lot higher than it would/should be if something (about the system cooling design or about the manufacturing process) isn't "right". If (some) users apps. are not really stressing the CPU, then maybe it really shouldn't be consistently running at those temps.

"Random crashes" are still the most troubling aspect, though.

Joseph: I do agree that "random crashes" (whatever various people may mean by that phrase) are troublesome. I just wish the people afflicted by them weren't all being encouraged by some of the posters in this thread to assume that the "random crashes" are caused by high temperatures, because in most cases the temperatures being reported are NOT too high, and are probably unrelated to the "random crashes." Let's keep separate issues separate unless they can be proven to be related. Finally, I wish the people suffering from "random crashes" would describe what that means with enough precision so it would be possible to determine whether they are all seeing the same behavior (perhaps arising from the same cause), or whether that phrase encompasses a variety of different behaviors (probably arising from different causes).

eww....

If you haven't seen it, then you (and others posting to this thread), might be interested in checking out another related thread on "Apple Discussions" that is titled: "MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze".

For me,
it's not really crashes. Using Cinema 4d or After Effect, the render stop , I can't do anything EXCEPT moving the mouse.

I too have been having this issue with my week old MBP, when I ran handbrake for the first time on this new machine the fans got super loud right after opening the program. I checked on SMCfancontrol and it said it was running at 196-198f! It was really hot to the touch and the fans were screaming loud. I have the 2010 i7 15" and have never had the fan this loud of the temps this loud even when running CS5!
I called apple care and they had me reset the SMC controls using the (shift controloption) from boot and then tried just opening a couple programs and it was back at 196 again in seconds.
I then went into the apple store and explained everything to one of the genius bar guys and they ran a diagnostic and told me that there is nothing wrong! I asked him if I could show him how hot it gets and then have him tell me if there is nothing wrong and he said that its erelevant and that I could just take it back if I want but that a third party program cant be used to base any decision they make, so his stance is there is nothing wrong with my computer. I cant believe this crap.
I took my last years model and loaded everything I coudl think of and couldnt get it up past 154 degrees!
It seems like the apple care people know about this problem but they told me that becasue they are so new that they dont know what is causing it and thats probably why the guys at the retail location dont know anything and couldnt help me.
I am just going to take this new one back and exchange it for a new one at a different location and hope that it doesnt have the same issue. I was told that only a couple hundred people reported this issue out of the thousands they have sold so far so wish me luck.
If anyone else has any solutions or experiences with apple on this please do tell. It seems to me that if you just go in like an idion saying "is this to hot?" then more with get done then a smart person going in saying "hey, this is running way to hot and explaining whats going on, its pretty frustrating, I feel as if the retail guys felt like I was trying to scam my way into a new computer when he and I both know that I can just take it back because I feel like it any time for the next week?! ok, ill stop ranting now, you can probably tell I just left the apple store an hour ago...
Chris-
drcraig07@hotmail.com

Just wanted to say that I brought 2 of the 13" macbooks with the i7 cpu and none of them heats up. The fan is always almost stopped. (Except when I was importing my 15.000+ photos in iPhoto when it was like seeing an airplane take off by the sound of the fan)

All of is this in Portugal.

Typical reply for a problem not yet worked out on what is causing it, also software used for determing faulty macs is if faulty at the time of test or actually broke. However this is a problem either way its looked at, not broke or not even occuring at the time of testing. Apple support should look into the issues that are brought forward by customers and either look into them more thoroughly or explain the issue at hand and not rely just on a tool all the time.
I think as mentioned previously in this post that this can be related to another thread with similar problems see below.

*Re: MacBook Pro 2011 17" hard freeze*

I dont really play any games on any of my previous macbooks and I am awaiting for the latest macbook pro at present. But can some of you who have and have Not had problems please confirm some of this info.
Are hard freezes or unoperative problems or fan noise heat issues with your macs (only able to move mouse) related to just games ?
Is anyone having problems with CS4/5 LR4 etc on there mac ?

Has anyone done a reinstall of OS 10.6.6 and then just used the machine for a full day and not had any problems ?
has anyone not got any fan software such as istat/ smc etc installed and still getting issues ?
Auto switching from a game to the finder can revert back to using the std graphics card and this could be the cause as well as 3rd party fan control software. However I feel that the OS 10.6.6 in conjunction with slow fan speed accelaration with lower or not to warm room temperatures slows down the cooling of the CPU/GPU and causes the hard freeze especially if there are 3rd party drivers for fan control installed - Please lets here some feedback on this.
As a final point when charging your macbook pro at the same time this may also be a problem, so has anyone had this problem during charging or not ?
You can test this by booting up into AHT by holding the D key down (make sure you have less than 70% charge and more than 20% charge on your battery, and the power connector is in). Then do the std test and repeat a couple more times without restarting - Do you get a tmp' error ?

I think the more we all try different settngs we may narror this down to either a Hardware/ software fault.

Thanks.

*Following up on Nicolas N´s post, I think everyone should answer his questions, copy below and fill in you experiences, feel free to add questions of your own.*

----------------------------------------------

_MACBOOK PRO 2011 FREEZE_

has anyone not got any fan software such as istat/ smc etc installed and still getting issues ?
*Answer: Yes, this happened while my macbook pro was fresh, and also after installing smcfancontrol.*

Auto switching from a game to the finder can revert back to using the std graphics card and this could be the cause as well as 3rd party fan control software. However I feel that the OS 10.6.6 in conjunction with slow fan speed accelaration with lower or not to warm room temperatures slows down the cooling of the CPU/GPU and causes the hard freeze especially if there are 3rd party drivers for fan control installed - Please lets here some feedback on this.
*Feedback: Altough I havent been able to replicate the freeze now in 2 days, the freeze occured*
*while rendering within After Effects CS5 with multiple cores, the CPU temp goes above 90C and the fans reach 6200 rpm, this happen every time, even when doing RAM previews inside AE, which is really annoying if you only want to preview a small portion of your animation*

As a final point when charging your macbook pro at the same time this may also be a problem, so has anyone had this problem during charging or not ?
*Answer: I have experienced the freeze with charing and without.*

You can test this by booting up into AHT by holding the D key down (make sure you have less than 70% charge and more than 20% charge on your battery, and the power connector is in). Then do the std test and repeat a couple more times without restarting - Do you get a tmp' error ?
*Answer: I have run the AHT test (the long one) without any errors.*

Are hard freezes or unoperative problems or fan noise heat issues with your macs (only able to move mouse) related to just games ?
*Answer: No for me it happens using After Effects CS5 when rendering with multiple cores.*

Is anyone having problems with CS4/5 LR4 etc on there mac ?
*Answer: Yes, see above.*

NEW question: Have you tried disabling the GPU switch with "gfxcardstatus", and still experienced the freeze?
*Answer: Yes, I have tried both the graphics card, no difference for me at first. The freeze still occured,*
*however after trying this on both cards 2 days ago, and snow switched back to the standard config*
*with the GPU switch turned on, I have not been able to reproduce the freeze.*

NEW question: Have you tried disabling Hyper threading?
Yes, this made no difference to the Fan Noise issues, I am however unable to tell if it affects the freeze, since I am no longer able to reproduce the freeze state.

/D

Note also (from reading the "other" thread) that a structured investigation of hard freezes necessitates using the "Console" app. to review log files that OSX continuously writes and stores in the background for later investigation. It's best to make a diary of conditions, noting the time on the clock as each freeze occurs, since the logs are often very large. Reading and interpreting them can require OSX knowledge many do not have, but a good knowledgeable Apple tech should find the combination of (1) information in the log files; (2) what you were running during the freeze; and, (3) other system/OSX parameters you had set - - to be very useful to drill down to the cause of a particular hard freeze.

you guys should give feedback directly to apple, the link is somewhere in this thread. This at the very least makes sure these problems get fixed in the next minor revision and at most get your machines fixed or replaced as this shouldnt be happening at all. The new chips are designed on the new 32 nm architecture and should run cooler over all if the reviews of them in the intel geek world are anything to go by.

Im personally after one of these machines but I already have a jet engine on my desk and might wait for the minor revision as Im in no rush for another one 🙂

I'm having the same problem. After Effects CS5 is hard locking the system. It happens on RAM previews, changing settings within filters and on renders.

I spent an hour on the phone with Apple. They blamed it on Adobe, but I got a pretty good level 2 guy on the phone that was pretty understanding. He suggested I wipe the hard drive and start over. I did. I thought it was going better, but when I tried to open facetime while AE was rendering, it crashed.

Admittedly, I was pushing the system, but I've never seen a hard lock like this in AE prior to owning this system. I'm still within my 14 day window to send it back in but I wanted to rule out ever possible issue before sending it back in and being without my main system for 4 or 5 days.

Anyway - I'm confirming that AE CS5 is creating hard freezes. I've had about 12 of them in the last few days.

Very frustrating seeing that I just spent $3200 on an upgraded system.

Live with it, or buy something like an Asus G73SW. You either buy a laptop that looks good or has decent fans, that's just how it is.

Agree...

With the industry's thinnest design for 15 inch and 17 inch, you cannot expect the heat sink or fan to be large enough as that of G73SW.

Besides, the super powerful 45W new quad core CPU deserves a much more hard working heat sink and fan than the one used for previous generations. Unfortunately Apply is using the same thermal design as previous 25W C2D or 35W i5/i7. Basic physics tells us 45W will be hotter than 35W or 25W. You can't by pass the physical law unless you have something new.

Suggestions for Apple: Use larger metal heat sink with more powerful meglev fans, allow higher fan rpm at lower temperature threshold (i.e.70C at 3000 rpm).

Unless some really novel thermal design apple can propose, I don't think the heat issue can be easily solved and macbook pro can't compete with gaming pc for thermal handling. After all, gaming laptop are designed to handle excessive heat.

So just live with it.

The Tjunctionmax for these new quad-core processors is 100C ( http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=52227&processor=i7-2820QM&spec-codes=SR00U, SR012) -- this is the max temperature the CPU cores can attain before thermal throttling is initiated. Now, we're not completely sure that what iStat is measuring is actually Tjunction, but if it is, then these processors should be able to reach 100C before slowing down, much less locking up. Mine's barely cracked 90C, and then it was only before the fans had had a chance to spin up to get the temp back down into the mid-80's.

Message was edited by: Schwa72